…the next generation deserves to see nature’s beauty, too.
i
Life is full of synonyms:
Animals / solemn things
Non-living things / static things
Humankind / wicked beings.
The only reason why humans take care
of hens is to kill them on festive days
or when hunger, like a thief in the dark,
visits their stomach.
Human nature is to love in order to earn.
Like the ground inhumed Jesus’ blood
on his day of crucifixion,
our lands are to do the same on Christmas days.
So we bind animals live with solitude
for the sake of Christ,
whose name we do not bear.
Maybe the reason we celebrate
Christmas is to have a subconscious
consensus carnival for the spilling
of pristine animals’ blood.
ii
2002:
Butterflies were the instruments
my friends and I used
to measure beauty.
2020:
We have not cut enough trees to save our bodies.
Butterflies have become myths:
We will tell our children
of how beautiful they were.
Butterflies and dinosaurs have become metaphors
paleontologists use while describing
prehistoric geologic times.
Antarctic ice is melting;
nonchalance is settling
like an appendix in humankind’s heart.
Until we accept the earth
is fading,
our children’s future
belongs to the void.
Prophecies:
Nature will become a story we will tell our children
to make them think the world
can be beautiful
(or the world was beautiful).
i
Life is full of synonyms:
Animals / solemn things
Non-living things / static things
Humankind / wicked beings.
The only reason why humans take care
of hens is to kill them on festive days
or when hunger, like a thief in the dark,
visits their stomach.
Human nature is to love in order to earn.
Like the ground inhumed Jesus’ blood
on his day of crucifixion,
our lands are to do the same on Christmas days.
So we bind animals live with solitude
for the sake of Christ,
whose name we do not bear.
Maybe the reason we celebrate
Christmas is to have a subconscious
consensus carnival for the spilling
of pristine animals’ blood.
ii
2002:
Butterflies were the instruments
my friends and I used
to measure beauty.
2020:
We have not cut enough trees to save our bodies.
Butterflies have become myths:
We will tell our children
of how beautiful they were.
Butterflies and dinosaurs have become metaphors
paleontologists use while describing
prehistoric geologic times.
Antarctic ice is melting;
nonchalance is settling
like an appendix in humankind’s heart.
Until we accept the earth
is fading,
our children’s future
belongs to the void.
Prophecies:
Nature will become a story we will tell our children
to make them think the world
can be beautiful
(or the world was beautiful).
Idowu Odeyemi is a Nigerian poet and essayist. His poem Love Only Kills A Poor Boy won the Liverpool-based Merak Magazine 2019 Annual Literary Recognition Awards for Best Poem of the Year. He was shortlisted for the 2018 Nigerian Students Poetry Prize and the Christopher Okigbo Poetry prize. His poems appeared in the anthology 84 Bottles of Wine dedicated to the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Constellate Journal, Kalahari Review, and Praxis Magazine, among others.